Page 98 of Winterveil

Julian was the one who had found him, the silhouette of his limp body outlined against the glossy blue evening sky. The wind ruffled the tree branches and the white petals blew out to sea and the rope around his brother’s neck strained and swung.

It was Julian’s shout that sent his mother and father and sister running out of the house. His mother dropped to her knees and wailed, such a desperate, anguished sound that Julian’s skin was set alight. Olivia fled in hysterical sobs. And his father knelt beside his mother, holding her to his chest, his face white and voice cold when he said to Julian, “Get him down.”

Julian approached the tree on shaking legs. He could hardly feel the weight of his own limbs. He reached up, grasping for the rope, but his fingers were slick from a chill sweat and they couldn’t find purchase. Icy air wafted from his brother’s body, already stiff.

He couldn’t do it. He was too terrified, too weak. His father called for Fikret, their towering driver. Fikret’s hands shook, too, but he managed to unlace the rope and catch Aurelian’s body before it fell to the ground.

In the time that they waited for an ambulance, in those dead, languid moments that felt brief but also endless, Julian pushed up the sleeve of his brother’s shirt and removed his watch. Aurelian had a particular love for watches and this one was his favorite, a vintage Rolex with a slightly worn band, a family heirloom.

Julian slid it onto his own wrist and clasped it with great difficulty. He tasted the salt air in his mouth. Then he leaned over his brother’s body and signed I love you one last time, as the ambulance lights patterned the sand and the side of the house red and blue and the siren rang out over the sound of his mother’s sobbing.

The funeral was a quiet affair. His grandparents refused to attend on principle, because suicide was a sin and Aurelian had not been given last rites. They sent a terse note of condolences instead, with a rosary enclosed. Only his mother, father, and sister stood over the coffin. The priest gave a short service but his father did not allow any eulogies.

So there was no one to say that Aurelian had watched all the recordings of Julian’s lacrosse games, no one to say that he’d loved building elaborate sandcastles and that he’d been the best at pushing Olivia on the swings, no one to say that Aurelian had been a person, too, with as much capacity for joy and hope as anyone.

Those were the words Julian would have spoken, if he had been permitted. Instead, they burned in the base of his throat.

His mother clung to him for the entirety of the ceremony, crying so hard that her tears soaked the sleeve of his suit jacket.

“Don’t leave me,” his mother gasped, every time he tried to adjust his position or pull away. “Please, please, don’t ever leave me.”

In the weeks and months that followed, Julian felt oddly numb. Food had no taste. The world seemed to slow and blur around him. His mother drank; his father shut himself inside his office for hours. He drove Olivia to her ballet classes when his mother couldn’t be roused from her Chardonnay-and-Xanax-induced slumbers. Every photo of Aurelian was taken down from the walls.

As time wore on, Julian wanted to feel something again. Anything. Even Landon’s stash of pills didn’t give him the fix he needed. He wanted the rush of adrenaline, of risk. And maybe a part of him wanted to punish his father, too—to anger him, to shame him.

It wasn’t enough to foul out of lacrosse games or tank his grades. He needed to do something bigger. His hands had shaken as he dialed the number for Jim Cafferty, DC’s top political consultant, but then he’d seen the flash of Aurelian’s watch on his wrist and it filled him with a sick sort of resolve. The first time Julian heard Cafferty’s rough rasp on the other end of the line, he’d smiled. Fikret became Julian’s body man during his mayoral campaign, carrying his speech cards and fetching aspirin for his hangovers. Once he had even disinfected and bandaged a scrape on Julian’s knee after he’d fallen down drunk.

Now Julian lay awake in this strange place, in this half-real reality, and looked at the watch again. The face gleamed in the soft, cold moonlight. His ears throbbed with the memory of his brother’s screams. He wondered when Aurelian’s ghost would release him. He wondered if he even wanted that. Freedom would mean forgetting.

Eventually, exhaustion overtook him and his eyelids fluttered shut. He gave himself over to the oblivion of sleep.

Julian woke to someone gently jostling his arm. He shot into a sitting position, heart racing. But it was only Crispin standing above him, daylight pouring in through the window. He was annoyed with himself for the momentary panic, annoyed that the shadowy memories of black-clad men kept creeping to the corners of his vision.

Blinking, he asked, “What time is it?”

“Nine sixteen,” Crispin replied.

He’d overslept. He could just imagine the look of dismay on Klaudia’s face. Julian threw off the covers and got to his feet. Upon standing, he was suddenly waylaid by a powerful sense of dizziness.

Out of instinct, he reached for some way to steady himself, and found it on Crispin’s shoulder. Before he could even understand what was happening, Crispin had his other arm braced against Julian’s lower back, keeping him upright.

Julian flinched. He jerked away from Crispin, and then immediately felt a rush of guilt. For all his misgivings, Crispin had never done anything thus far except try to help.

“Sorry,” Julian muttered. “And, uh . . . thanks.”

Crispin nodded and took a small step back.

Julian looked at him—really looked at him, as intently as he could without his glasses. Once again he had the sense of him being fragile, delicate, but in a compelling way that made Julian’s stomach flutter. The bruises around his throat had deepened to a lush purple.

He wanted to ask how, exactly, Crispin had come into Deckard’s employ, how he had become a clandestine officer at not even twenty years old. Crispin had already turned on the record player, familiar, cheery synth-pop notes filling the air—welcome to your life; there’s no turning back—but even with the music muffling their voices, Julian didn’t expect these were the sorts of questions Crispin would be permitted to answer.

So instead he said, “However much Deckard is paying you, it isn’t enough.”

Crispin looked disarmed. Frowning, he said, “I’m doing this for my country.”

“Nice recitation of the party line.” Julian reached for his glasses and put them on, blinking again as the room came into focus. “I hope you at least get to let loose on the weekends.”

Crispin looked more bewildered. “Today is Saturday.”